Sometimes, you look at a new Riftbound card and go ‘huh, that looks decent.’ You take a few days off, come back, take a look at it again, and go ‘oh, that’s kind of busted.’ That’s exactly what’s happened with Helm of Suppression, a new Epic Gear card that’ll drop as part of upcoming set, Vendetta. This Calm (green) card is anything but calm as, when Empowered, it becomes a mid-to-late game monster.
Let’s quickly talk about the Empowered mechanic, as it’s central to how Helm of Suppression works. It’s relatively simple: when you play your card, it has a base ability. If you pay its Empowered cost, that ability evolves and gets better, opening up new possibilities for play. You can Empower a card at any time – you don’t need to pay the cost immediately – and the Empower appears to last for the duration of the game; no need to keep paying the cost over and over again.
Helm of Suppression makes use of said Empower mechanic. At base, it’s a four-cost with an additional Calm rune, which you’ll have to recycle. When played, enemy spells now cost one extra Energy to cast, so a two-Energy spell like Block now costs three, as an example. When Empowered, however, enemy spells will cost one extra Energy and a recycled Rune of any color to play. So, using the Block example, it’ll go from a simple two-cost to a three-cost, and you’ll have to recycle one of your Runes.
Empowering Helm of Suppression costs another four Energy and a recycled Calm rune, which is pretty hefty. To get this thing live on-entry, you’d be spending eight Energy total with two Calm Runes being recycled. But, as aforementioned, you can Empower it at any time, so I’d advise dropping it in the mid-game to slow down more aggressive or ramping decks, then Empowering it when you can to get a stranglehold over spell-heavy, late-game monsters.
Helm of Suppression is a strong card; no doubts there. While the cost is high, it massively slows down aggro decks (take the Jinx precon as an example), and messes with the tempo of spell-focused decks. Mind-heavy decks will obviously struggle here, but Chaos and even other Calm decks will also take a bit of a hit.
Having done a quick scout of existing Riftbound Gear cards (with some help from my wonderful partner), there doesn’t seem to be any other Gear cards that use the ‘enemy pays [x] cost to play’ mechanic. We’ve seen similar in Magic: The Gathering (Rhystic Study is a good example), but Helm of Suppression seems to be the first of its kind in Riftbound. It’s not exactly revolutionary, but by God, it’ll do.
League of Legends Riftbound Set 4, Vendetta, launches on Friday, July 31 worldwide. It’s currently out of stock on Riot’s website, but check your local game store and anywhere else that you buy cards. Just avoid scalpers; no one likes scalpers.
Vendetta sees the debut of the new Showdown decks, which are akin to Magic’s Starter Kits. Featuring dueling ninjas Shen and Zed, it’s priced at $34.99. There are no extra precons as a result, but you’ll still be able to buy the usual booster boxes and a new Vault featuring everybody’s favorite assassin, Akali.
